Stand Up Vanguard

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Black Ops Agency of The Dragon Empire is an amazingly interesting clan but their BT05 support was extremely lacking in making them powerful but Booster 9 is fit to change all of that with multiple viable Murakumo decks including my new favorite Murakumo card Phantasmagoric Snowy Wind, Shirayuki.

In the coming posts I'll describe each of the new Grade 3 Vanguard's Murakumo received in set 9 along with decklists for each for now though I'm having a ton of fun with my Wii U and have Finals so be patient I will have real information soon.

Monday, November 12, 2012

I know very little about Oracle Think Tank but I do know that it is impossible for Silent Tom to threaten a 13k Vanguard without a trigger to boost it. Tsukuyomi doesn't hit 18k without a 7k boost behind it but Coco can hit 18k with a 5k boost and 23k with a 10k boost.

You want to call Lulu behind Coco when you ride it to have a essentially free 18000 Line. To make further 18000 lines you could use 10k Grade 2 boosted by 8k grade 1. Oracle Think Tank have no big boosters aside from their 8k Vanilla. Meaning only a 10k or higher unit can ever hit high enough numbers. You still will run Silent Tom simply because he's Silent Tom.

The only way the deck can hit big numbers is running those 8k Grade 2's that gain 3k for certain conditions. All of which are Battle Sister's. Meaning the Battle Sister build has an easier time hitting 18k than the others due to the plethora of big Grade 2's and 3's. Tsukuyomi builds don't struggle either though because of the trigger stack the deck can always keep up.

Souffle and Nana when boosted by a 6k and a 7k respectively can hit 18k.

You have 2 Grade 2 Vanilla now which honestly doesn't help at all because you still only have 1 8k boost if you had another the deck would be perfectly fine.

Your Rearguards will have to focus more on sheer numbers than on effects and pressure to threaten 13k vanguards. While your Vanguard gets the Alfred treatment with any pullback Rearguard making you not need to call a unit behind the Vanguard. As long as that Vanguard can hit 13k. Meaning you want Sky Witch Nana in your Coco deck because it's a great Backup Vanguard when it comes to hitting 18k. Battle Sister Souffle also works very well because it only needs a 6k boost as a rearguard.

Against a 12k Vanguard or any Shamshiel deck though Oracle Think Tank can excel due to the ease of hitting 17k in OTT. Hitting 13k though requires good field set up and against DOTE's Kimnara's will be aimed solely at your good rearguards. Meaning you want Lines that don't require a 8k boost to hit 18k so else your opponent will just Kimnara or Tejas or Heat Nail all your boosts. You don't want any Grade 1's with less than 7k Power but you want all your Grade 2's sans Silent Tom to be able to hit 18k with a 7k boost. If your opponent misrides Silent Tom is your go to clean-up batter because after that you treat it like any 11k deck. The only threat at that point is their offensive options are about equal to your defensive options.

That's the best I can do with Think Tanks. There should be more ways for Think Tank to deal with Crossrides in set 9 along with them getting a Crossride anyway.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

One thing about Dark Irregular's before I start. Their pluses are hugely limited and their lines aren't as good as Royal Paladin's but eh close enough.

First off Amon is your main Vanguard. Once you have 8 soul he is Alfred Level meaning he no longer needs a boost to be a threat. But now you need equally reasonable Rearguard lines to hit at least 18000.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Using a Royal Paladin deck after set 5 has been fixed by the addition of Wingal Brave making your deck that much more powerful.

You have 2 10k Grade 2 Rearguard's Available 1 13k Grade 3 Rearguard and 1 12k Grade 3 Rearguard. Along with that you have Majesty Lord Blaster and King of Knight's, Alfred.

So against DOTE you have Palamedes with Wingal Brave behind it. an Alfred with nothing behind it and another line with Gallatin with a Marron behind it... you now have 3 18k lines against a 13k Vanguard.

Meaning every turn your opponent either takes damage or guards for 10k every hit. Meaning 30k Shield every turn at 5 damage minimum assuming you have 0 Triggers in your deck. They will Kimnara the Marron but not the Wingal Brave simply because it's not a minus to you and is easily replaceable. So now you replace the Marron using Alfred's' effect with another Marron... your opponent is out 5k shield or a 6k boost... Once again they have to take 30k Shield to block again.

So you can now run a Majesty Lord Blaster deck with backup vanguard of Alfred. But Alfred actually is also a good Rearguard because with your multiple 8 and 9k boosters you can still hit magic numbers on a Crossride and also Alfred's effect works from the Rearguard. Meaning the only bad Rearguard in the deck would be Majesty Lord Blaster.

being able to threaten a 13k Vanguard with either a double critting Majesty Lord that will kill if it hits most of the time or a 18k on attack Alfred without a boost letting you hold the equivalent of a 5k shield in hand at all times. Not to mention every line you have normally will be hitting for 18k or more at all times. Your opponent's 13k Defense won't be that big of a boost when it's still 10k to block... Palamedes without a boost is still 5k to block so nasty. Run that with Either Stand Triggers or Critical Triggers (Doesn't really matter but Critical's are Preferred to force 2 trigger blocks whenever your opponent is a 4 damage).

Alfred as the secondary or primary Vanguard gives you a way to absolutely demolish 13k Vanguards regardless of what you ride. Hence Royal Paladin with an Alfred bend are a really good anti-crossride deck quite possibly the best as stopping Crossride advantage gains.

Next time i'll cover another equally good at making 18k line deck Dark Irregulars.

BTW got second a locals this weekend with Galahad Paladins (Only the grade 0-2). My only loss was to Spectral Duke... I murdered it game 1 and then Game 2 I got stuck at Grade 2 the entire game... He only won because of a lucky Heal Trigger as his 6th damage letting him get another turn. I did though block Spectral Duke's Limit Break twice that game while stuck with Grade 2 Galahad as the Vanguard. Game 3 we both got stuck at grade 2 for 1 turn each. So eh he went on to win the rest of his games... against my brother he got off Lop Ear and Dindrane drew a card got another Lop Ear and then a Pellinore wound up with a 12 card hand and Goku Blade couldn't really do anything about the stupid amounts of lucky advantage and retiring anything would be pointless because everything was free. Sooo dumb.

I had to beat my brother for second as that was also his only loss. Before the tournament he showed me how to beat Goku Blade with Royal Paladins as I had little practice (First time using the deck in tournament) both games were extremely fast.

I played against Ryan Vignetti and early game double triggered (1 Crit and 1 Draw) him for game. Game 2 he saw that he was Locked at 0 and scooped.

I also played against Shamshiel. She was doing relatively well at surviving she lived through so many turns but I had 17k Lines which are perfect against Shamshiel... a 22k Palamedes line and a 17k Alfred Line with a 20k Alfred swinging in everyturn. Not to mention her putting her Heal Triggers back in deck lowering her total guard. I raped the first game and game 2 she actually had me against the ropes... I couldn't block for the turn bar a heal trigger... I didn't heal all game she healed like 3 times... I set my hand down and declared no guard. Heal Trigger check. Stood my cards and wanted to declare Final Turn but with 4 Heal Triggers left in her deck and it being late game I didn't. Swung in and she couldn't block my 17k Alfred even after using Nociel to boost her Vanguard to 12k beforehand. So eh got second pulled a 5th Daiyusha and a 2nd Edel Rose. Traded for a lot of random Trade stuffs and got rid of a lot of my Yugioh stuff.

Then I unproxied my Dark Irregular deck and just built it with what I had... My brother unproxied his Nova Grapplers and with our 5 Azure Dragon's he was able to mostly build the deck anyway. Minus the full guards...

The Royal Paladin build I used for the tourney:
Grade 3: 7
2x Swordsman of Explosive Flames, Palamedes
2x Twin Shine Swordsman, Marhaus
3x King of Knights, Alfred

Spectral Duke is an easy matchup if you can make 16k lines and guess what I can make easily... 16k lines... Heck I can Call Palamedes after I ride Alfred and then play Akane CB 2 grab Toypugal and put it behind Akane and then play any boost behind Palamedes including but not limited to Marron to make a 21k Line... meaning 10k minimum for 0 triggers on vanguard. 15k minimum on Palamedes and 10k minimum on Akane.. to block for 2 triggers to pass you need 20k on Vanguard meaning 45k Shield every turn or take 1 damage... if you do block for 2 triggers and I get a Crit... I give all effects to Palamedes now Palamedes requires 20k to block meaning the turn now requires 50k to block or you take 1 damage. Allowing for Final Turn declarations against a 6 card hand at 5 damage and a 5 card hand at 4 damage... If you counted checks and see that they are mostly 5k shields and maybe 2 10k shields they now cannot block the entire turn and must take a damage if at 4 damage with a 5 card hand I'd assume an unknown card is a 10k Shield as i should know at least 3 of the rest to be something... with 45k required to guard for 2 triggers to pass.

Now one thing I want people to remember... If an attack would take 2 cards to block for 2 triggers to pass Them using a Full Guard takes the same amount of cards while saving them some shield. It also means that if they had 5 cards... they now have 3 if you know one of those 3 is a 5k shield... and swing they at max have 25k left and thats assuming you don't know the rest of their hand meaning they'll be down to zero cards. If your opponent had 5 damage you most likely won. Otherwise you'd have to know your opponent's turn...

BTW If you have 3 lines that each take 15k to block and your opponent is at 3 damage and overextended to put down lines assuming only 1 front row is a grade 2 and they have 3 cards in hand... You can win with a single trigger assuming no Full Guard. Swing in and they have to block 15k meaning at minimum 2 cards if they had a 5k shield and 2 10k shields in hand and 1 Intercepter... But if your vanguard forces 15k shield for 1 to pass... If you are running crits they would probably not guard... You check a crit and give another Line the power and crit the opponent. One of those lines that forced 15k now force 20k... They are at 5 damage.... If they put up both 10k's to block the giant line. they now cannot block the last line and lose... bar any trigger checks on their side. If you check two triggers if one is a crit you win even if they have 2 intercepters... If they put down two Grade 2's they can live the turn against a single trigger check but if it is a two trigger check they still lose. If they happened to not have any Triggers in hand and had all 5k shields they need 15k to block the Vanguard swing if they don't block it and you crit they lose as they cannot guard both hits.

If your vanguard is Daiyusha and you have it boosted to 14k with 2 crit pre-battle. and have 2 lines that each force 10k against the same situation. Your opponent now has to block the Vanguard for 2 Triggers or else they will instantly lose with a single Trigger check. But that means if you got to 4 damage beforehand Glory Maker makes that a 24k Swing which against a 11k Vanguard means 15k shield for 1 to pass and 20k shield for 2 to pass. If you were able to boost Daiyusha to 26k for that turn you will force 20k for 1 to pass and 25k for 2 to pass... meaning that once against no matter how much they guard a single trigger is GG.

So in certain situations even in early game if you only have 30k Shield to block with against a deck running critical triggers you will have a bad time if they can make Rearguard Lines that each take half of your blocking.

Meaning It's reasonable to actually declare Final Turn early game against an opponent who overextended. Like they rode to grade 3 and had already taken 3 damage. They play out lines to even up the damage making. So looking at an opponents handsize... turn 1 They have 6 cards and ride now they have 5 in hand... You make them take 2 damage turn 1. Turn 2 they draw to 6 and ride to 2 they now have 5 in hand. they swing and get 1 card to hand putting them at 6. You make them take 1 damage turn 2 (They spend 1 card to guard that turn). Turn 3 they draw to 6 and ride to grade 3 at 5 cards. They call out 4 cards to swing with... down to 1 card... They swing in and deal some damage... check up to 3 cards in hand. Your turn they have 3 damage and 3 cards in hand. You crit them and give power to a rearguard that also makes a line... there is a chance they can't block the boosted hit and you can win early. Or you just double trigger them and they lose. Basically 3 damage and 3 cards in hand and you have lines that force 10k at minimum they go down to 0 cards in hand if you get any critical triggers you can win that turn. It's actually possible... so Kai isn't a demon just really really good and his opponent was really bad that time.

[CONT](VC/RC): If have a non-«Kagero» vanguard or rear-guard, this unit gets [Power]-2000.
[CONT](VC): If you have a unit named "Dragonic Overlord" in your soul, this unit gets [Power]+2000.
[AUTO](VC): [Counter Blast (2) & Choose a "Dragonic Overlord The End" from your hand, and discard it.] When this unit's attack hits, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit.

So this unit will never be in a mix clan deck but it is a 13k Defense which isn't the most scary part of this card... If you don't block this cards attack you will automatically give your opponent the huge chance to pitch a useless Grade 3 after twin drive check and do it again keeping the twin drive check...

So no matter what if this attack hits you will probably be too far behind to win unless they do not have the Persona Blast available.

Next we have Shadow Paladin:

CONT 【V/R】: If you have a non-«Shadow Paladin» Vanguard or rear-guard, this unit gets Power -2000.
CONT 【V】: If you have a unit named "Phantom Blaster Dragon" in your soul, this unit gets Power +2000.
AUTO 【V】: [Counter Blast (3) & Choose a Phantom Blaster Overlord from your hand, and discard it.] When this unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, this unit gets Power +10000/Critical +1 until end of that turn.

Basically this isn't nearly as scary as The End. Your opponent has to time this effect correctly for it to matter. If they Persona Blast at the wrong time and it's blocked they can no longer use it without unflipping damage and obtaining a third Phantom Blaster Overlord.

Then we have Gold Paladin

[ACT](VC): Limit Break 5 (This ability is active if you have five or more damage):[Counter Blast(3)] Choose up to five of your «Gold Paladin» rear-guards, and those units get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.
[CONT](VC): If you have a card named "Incandescent Lion, Blond Ezel" in your soul, this unit gets [Power]+2000.
[CONT](VC/RC): Leader (If you have a unit with a different clan from this unit, this unit cannot attack)

This is a new breed of Crossride. It's ability can only be used when Limit Break 5 is active but it's extremely powerful and a really dangerous card. Basically Soul Saver Dragon on crack. Instead of 3 units getting a huge boost it makes every line except for it's own gain 10k while it's line only gets 5k... But think of it this way... Opponent is at 5 damage with 3 open... you have 8 cards in hand 4 10k Shields 2 Grade 3 and 2 5k Shields and 1 Grade 2 on field 55k Shield total... You have 5 damage and a 11k Vanguard they have 2 16k RG lines and Platinum Ezel with a Tron behind it. You can easily guard this turn even a no trigger pass on vanguard if you wanted. They Limit Break suddenly they have 2 26k Lines and a 11k Tron behind the 13k Platinum Ezel. They swing with the Vanguard for 28k... Pre-Triggers... you have to use 20k for a 1 trigger pass 30k for a no trigger pass... say you put up 25k for 2 trigger pass. They check a Critical Trigger and give the power to a Rearguard... now you have 30k Shield left... 26k Rearguard line swings in you put up 20k. 10k Shield left 31k Rearguard Line swings in you have no guard left...

OR

You have a Full Guard in hand instead of one of those 5k Shields. You Full Guard the Vanguard and he checks that same trigger... you still have 50k Shield left. Rearguard swings in you put down 20k to stop that line. 30k left... they swing in with their 31. you put up 25k to stop that... So at 5 damage you needed a minimum of 7 cards in hand to survive the turn. Nasty right.

Next we have Nova Grappler

[AUTO](VC): Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage.):[Counter Blast (3)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to two of your rear-guards with "Beast Deity" in their name, and [Stand] them.
[CONT](VC): If you have a card named "Beast Deity, Azure Dragon" in your soul, this unit gets [Power]+2000.
[CONT](VC/RC): Leader (If you have a unit with a different clan from this unit, this unit cannot attack.)

This is a far weaker Crossride but still extremely powerful. It swings in and lets two units that already attacked battle again pre-trigger check. Meaning if you can get the rest of the lines to stand you can get a ton more attacks in... if you have a Death Army Guy behind each of two Yamata Drake. against a 10k Vanguard you can force 30k Shield before the Vanguard attack and then if you check a Grade 3 and Stand both Beast Diety's you can force another 30k shield. even against an 11k Vanguard you can force 20k Shield before the Vanguard attack which if a 8k is behind it you can force another 20k Shield to guard for 2 trigger pass. You stand the Yamata Drakes and check a grade 3... you get to swing in and force another 20k shield... your opponent needs 60k shield to survive... if you played right the entire game the opponent shouldn't have more than 6 cards in hand... if one is a full guard and 2 are known triggers... your opponent will have to full guard the vanguard use a trigger on each Rearguard attack... and then would need 2 more 5k Shields to stop the standed rearguard units barring a Grade 3 check or Trigger check of any kind on your side.

I don't have effects for the other Crossrides but tomorrow I should have a guide for 3 different clans and how they can deal with Crossrides sucessfully Mostly the 13k Defense portion. The most Dangerous crossride will probably be Goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu due to the highly defensive nature of that clan.

One thing about Crossrides is that their entire Grade 3 Line-up is Crossride related and their Grade 3's are often bad Rearguards. Meaning most decks early game if they can apply pressure early enough before the Crossride is completed you can come out on top... Also if they miss the Crossride they often can't put the rest into the Soul meaning you can then treat it like a less flexible deck that has limited options and run it over as if it was nothing special. If you can keep their rearguards out of the game then their huge defense won't matter much when their vanguard is the only threat to you.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Yes that's the title of this blogpost... and no i'm not qutting blogging. I'm actually coming back after not having anything to post for awhile. I've been working on deck builds using proxies and such because well why not. So I have also obtained most of my Dark Irregular deck and have noticed a lot of interesting things.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

I did relatively well but my losses were so sad... Sorry for the lull in posting recently I actually haven't had much to post on.

Anyway I was running my Narukami build and this is what went down.

Me vs Ergodiel Angel Feathers
I double healed in the beginning of the game and let Ergodiel persona blast early on simply because I needed the damage anyway. Game goes on and she eventually rides to Circular Saw and called out a Heal Trigger to boost a rearguard... I take damage up to 4 and she puts heal trigger back in.... On my 3rd turn I rode Thunder Break Dragon btw (hence why I needed the damage as I couldn't hit Ergodiel and had nothing to boost with). Once I got to 4 damage I saw she had 5 cards in hand and had 5 damage. Declared Final Turn... Swung in with just enough so that she couldn't save herself.
1-0

Me vs Soulless Think Tank
Having never before played against this deck I was at a major disadvantage to begin with especially when he started playing Apollons which really confused me as I had no idea what it even did. Lo and behold he makes two Silent Tom lines and I having no Grade 0's all game due to never seeing a trigger could only guard for so long. Eventually I just had nothing left to block with and lost.
1-1

Me vs Tsukuyomi
He gets the Superior Ride to his Grade 3 and starts going putting out as much pressure as he could. I dismantle his lines. He Rides over Tsukuyomi to Amaterasu and calls Red-Eye and Cocoa... He puts the card back on top.. Swings with Red-Eye first and I let that through because he misplayed putting his Chocolat into soul via Red-Eye. Then Amaterasu swings at my rearguard... I let it through not knowing that Amaterasu's ability can work no matter who it hits... He checks a Heal Trigger keeping me safe from the plus 4. From there he had no shield and I had a gigantic hand the entire game... Eventually got him to say no Guard at 5 damage and I won.
2-1

Me vs Shamshiel Angel Feather
This girl misplayed tons so much that I forgot to use Saishin to retire Turiel. In the long run I had lines far too big for Shamshiel to deal with eventually winning by constant hits to the dome.
3-1

Me vs Narukami (I really didn't want to play against another Narukami deck because I want it to win)
I get grade stuck at 2 and play out the game perfectly taking 0 damage until I draw Rising Phoenix which gets me Vermillion to match hers. Game goes on for a long time I have perfect lines and she has none. I've gotten rid of anything she put in the front row allowing me to save more hand cards... Eventually she has 0 cards in hand after blocking my major swing... I have 3 cards in hand but she has only a 19k Vermillion... She Top Decks Shiden... Shiden locks down one of my Intercepts... I block the Vermillion swing guarding for 2 triggers to pass... I'm thinking after seeing so many Critical triggers all game she wouldn't check more than 1... She double Crits with her last two Djinns in deck... I am 3k Shield Short of making it to the next round. This is the only instance where I can say there is blind-luck occasionally involved in Vanguard simply by merit of there being a deck from which you draw cards randomly.
3-2

Goes home got 0 trades and the swag I did get for entering was minimal so all in all a wasted day aside from the fact that I now know I am one of the top players in Georgia simply because My only real loss was due to having no chance to play against the deck and in 1 and done format you need a lot of prior knowledge but with my small local and equally local small scene I only have so many deck to play against... all I do know is I did three times as good as Ryan Vignetti and his Tier-Whoring Spectral Duke self only switching from Spike Brothers because he saw Spectral Duke top thankfully he isn't a good player.

Anyway I'll go again next year with more preparation and just win it completely leaving no room for my opponent to hope to survive.

One thing I am noticing is that people keep treating Cardfight like a business... I'm like I have a full guard from the same set as your Full Guard... You want my full guard I want your full guard I shouldn't have to throw in cards simply because it has more resell value only due to bandwagoning. Such as Halo Shield Mark compared to something like Hades Hypnotist... One is like 10-13 the other is like 30-35... Simply due to hype... I'm like if we both get what we want why are you going for value of a piece of cardboard... It's one of the things that ruined Yu-Gi-Oh to me thanks to dumb inflation on prices that makes certain cards worth more than others that you have the same chance to acquire simply due to hype... I bet when Gold Paladin's stop winning and something like Pale Moon begin to rape the Tournament scene due to sheer numbers Hades Hypnotist will top 30 and Halo Shield, Mark will drop to 10-13...

Anyway going to try and run Royal Paladin's for awhile and take a break from Narukami. Besides Doctor K signed my Vermillion so I guess I didn't go home empty handed after all.

College going well so far I should have about a 4.0 in terms of GPA which is great for first semester which is when people normally mess up the most. Just gotta hold that for two more tests in each class...

Anyway thanks for viewing I'll eventually have more to post later but it may take awhile in-between posts. I may soon make another Deck Discussion.